BlackBerry Fixes Android Uninstall Bug For BB10

BlackBerry introduced the BlackBerry 10 operating system (often abbreviated to BB10), based on the QNX software, with the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. Over the years, BB10 has been steadily improved with a large number of new features implemented and refined. In use, BlackBerry 10 is fluid, smooth and well featured but one issue has dogged the platform since even before launch: support for third party applications. To be more precise, BlackBerry 10 has relatively limited support for third party applications compared with the market leaders of Android and iOS. Limited third party application support is an issue that Windows Phone has also suffered from and it is no surprise that both BlackBerry and Microsoft have worked on similar strategies to encourage developers to support their platform. These strategies have included offering an application bounty (in essence, paying a developer to release applications on that particular platform) and also providing support to easily port applications from one platform to the other.

BlackBerry introduced an Android Runtime a number of years ago, which allowed customers to install and use Android applications. Microsoft’s similar plans for Windows 10 Mobile have been suspended for the time being. On the BlackBerry platform, some Android applications worked well, others did not, depending on what other technologies the particular third party application required. Those applications requiring the support of the Google Play Services application tended to fail when installed. BlackBerry have continued to refine their Android Runtime over the months, but unfortunately BlackBerry’s Android Runtime embedded into January 2016’s update to BB10 10.3.2.2876 contained a flaw whereby customers were unable to uninstall Android applications. Specifically, when attempting to uninstall the application, the application icon is removed from the launcher but the application remains on the device. It is possible that some customers did not notice that their application remained on the device as the icon had disappeared, especially where the host device has plenty of available memory.

Fortunately, there is a fix in the world: customers need to head to the source link below, which is a link to the BlackBerry support website. Here, there’s a link to update the device’s Android Runtime. This, plus a reboot, should return normal functionality to the BlackBerry 10 device in question and customers will be able to properly uninstall Android applications.